Chapter 33
Istep into the construct’s dimming crimson light and drop my bloody knife and the Eastlander hatchet. Next, I strip off Alexus’s baldric and sword and toss them aside. Lastly, I shed my cloak, so the enemy can see that I’m unarmed. No more innocents will die because of me.
Especially Hel.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen.
We spotted the Eastlanders and their torches—and Alexus—a half-hour ago, but attacking thirteen warriors when we had no upper hand was unwise.
We changed course, planning for Hel to lure them into the cave where I’d doused the fire.
I would tear into them, one by one, as they entered the passageway.
Alas, the general had other plans.
“Good girl,” Vexx says to me. He stands with Hel, craning her head back at a painful angle against his shoulder. The God Knife’s tip is pressed to her throat, ready to open a vein. She’s alive, for now, and that sends a trickle of hope through me.
The general thrusts his chin at two of his warriors. “Must I tell you every time? Weapons. Hold her. And somebody check the cave.”
They kick away my only defense and bend my arms behind me. One of the now-dead Eastlanders that Vexx’s warriors are about to find had managed to stab my arm. With my biceps wrenched like this, I can’t help but cringe from the pain.
“Raina!”
I follow Alexus’s deep voice, and our gazes meet.
He stands closer to the bottom of the ravine, straining against iron binds while warriors hold him at bay.
Iron stifles godly power—Neri’s power. I don’t know what that means for Alexus’s magick, but if he could access it, he would’ve already done so.
The general releases Hel and sheathes the God Knife at his hip, watching me closely as he moves my way. Behind him, two women take hold of Hel, forcing her to her knees.
Vexx isn’t an overly large man, not much taller than Hel, but his presence is like that of a rising storm over the vale, something I feel more and more the closer he gets.
His eyes hold a deathly gleam, sharp and silver as a sword’s edge, and his stone-like face—with its weathered skin—has seen many battles, decorated with the scars to prove it.
“All of this”—the general gestures to the Eastlander-dotted hillside—“is because of you and your friend.” He angles his head, staring at me past the falling snow like he’s puzzling me out.
“A Witch Walker who can’t speak and can’t sing.
That must’ve made you quite the disappointment among your people. ”
“You pig!” Hel shouts, wriggling against the woman pressing her down. “She has more magick—”
I stop her with a warning glare that could cut ice.
Vexx laughs, curiosity glinting in his eyes. “Oh, does she, now? Interesting.” He pushes my hair aside and trails a fingertip down my neck and along my collarbone, tracing my witch’s marks.
After a moment, he seems to slip that nugget of information to the back of his mind, then he grabs me by my hair and forces me down the hill. Behind me, the horses nicker and Hel grunts, likely enduring the same fate as me.
We’re heading straight for Alexus.
Gods, I want to run to him. His eye is swollen shut, and bloody blooms speckle his dirty tunic. He stands at an odd tilt, like something is wrong with his leg.
Vexx and I are two strides away from the bottom of the ravine when the whole world flickers. It’s like the light in a room at night, when a draft has kissed a candle flame.
The snow stops falling, Vexx stops walking, and we all look up. Hel said a storm was coming, but this is no storm.
Like before, when Alexus and I entered the ravine, white lightning splinters the sky without a single sound.
This time, there are a thousand jagged arcs of light shattering the red-tinted atmosphere, spreading like cracks through thin glass.
That constant feeling of the construct’s magick, the sensation that’s been with me for days now, disintegrates, and the glaring light of day breaks through.
A cheer erupts from the Eastlanders, but it takes several moments for my eyes to adjust and my mind to absorb what’s happening.
What’s happened.
My stomach sinks. Is Nephele under attack? Is that why she and the Witch Walkers couldn’t hold out any longer?
“It’s about damn time,” Vexx says. “This little expedition is all but over now.”
I don’t get a single moment to bask in the warmth of the sun before Vexx shoves me forward, still holding onto my hair. His elation is evident in his quicker footsteps and the tightening of his grip, the pain and sudden sunlight making my eyes water.
I trip and fall, and a hunk of my hair rips from the roots before I land in the snow. Someone—who is not Vexx—hoists me up, pinning my wrists at my back. I shake my head, trudging forward, blinking away the snow from my lashes.
And just like that, I’m standing there, panting, an arm’s length from Alexus.
The light of day brutally illuminates his injuries, and my body aches to be near his. The chains holding him bound are so solid and thick that I don’t know how he’s still standing.
The way he looks at me almost ends me. I see his fear, and I know it isn’t for himself.
It’s for me.
“I’m so sorry, Raina.”
I shake my head, hoping he knows I don’t blame him. I just want to be back in that cave, curled with him near the fire, listening to his stories.
Gods, I wish I’d never let him leave.
A tear rolls from my eye as Mannus and sweet Tuck are guided past us, and the women leading Hel bring her to stand at Vexx’s opposite side. The general turns to the red-haired giant holding Alexus’s arm.
“You can say goodbye to your little friend, Rhonin. She escaped you and nearly cost us everything. Surely you want to punish her.”
My heart pounds. Rhonin.
I lean forward, meeting Hel’s glassy stare. I pray she was right, that he let her go, and that he will refuse to do this. I pray that he is not as evil as his general or his prince.
Rhonin looks like he doesn’t know what to do or say, a moment of shock passing over his face like a cloud. Alexus peers over at him, but Rhonin keeps his eyes fixed on Vexx.
“We can let her go.” He glances at what looks to be an early afternoon sky. “We don’t have time for this. She’s nothing to us. Nothing to our prince or our mission.”
Vexx tilts his head and narrows his eyes. “Rhonin, sometimes I wonder if you have the mettle required to be in this army.” He shoves Hel toward the Eastlander. “Either you punish her, or someone else will.”
The muscle in Rhonin’s jaw feathers. With apparent reluctance, he lets go of Alexus. He has blue eyes, and that cerulean gaze finds Hel, though she’s staring at the ground, chest rising and falling fast.
“Fine,” Rhonin replies. “But her beating happens in private. I don’t like an audience.”
Vexx watches his warrior carefully, suspicion leaking from his every pore, but he nods his permission.
Rhonin snatches Hel’s wrist and drags her toward the caves, stalking up the snowy hillside where other warriors remove the bodies of the Eastlanders I killed. Hel fights, like I knew she would, but Rhonin throws her over his shoulder, and the pair vanish into a cave.
With my heart in my throat and rage boiling my blood, I stomp the foot of the man holding me and lunge toward my friend. It’s Vexx who claims me, latching onto my hair again, yanking me back so hard that a zing of pain rips through my neck.
He pushes me forward, driving me up the hill in Hel’s footsteps until we’re back where we started. “Just for that,” he says, “we’re going to stand right here and let you see her when she comes out. Even if it’s for her burial.”
If I could free my hands, I would do everything in my power to harness fire threads and send flames raging across this ravine to end this, but Vexx holds me so tightly, one hand in my hair, the other clenching my wrists, aiming me at the cliff.
Out of nowhere, Alexus roars as if in protest, but another sound leaves him, one of sheerest agony, and he suddenly goes silent.
The earth rumbles, boulders tremble, and I lose my footing.
Vexx steadies me. Steadies himself.
I can’t see Alexus, but I know he somehow did that.
“It’s nothing,” Vexx calls out to his men, laughing at their fear. “Happens in these mountains all the time.” He tries to sound sure, though I hear unsettled nervousness in him, the way his laughter fades and dies.
Vexx hands me off, like I’m too much to deal with, an interruption to the spectacle involving Hel. I try to see Alexus, but my line of sight is swiftly corrected with a jerk to my head by different hands.
Every Eastlander on the slope by the caves stands in waiting, like salivating monsters, especially Vexx. From the look on his face and the way he stares at the cave’s mouth, I can tell that this is a test for the Eastland warrior named Rhonin.
Something comes alive in the air, and there’s another moment of pause across the ravine.
I don’t know what that something is, but it resonates in my marrow.
I’ve never felt anything like it, a sweeping presence that smells like cold, if cold had a scent.
It’s everywhere at once, stilling even the wind.
A white wolf howls loud and long in the distance. Then another joins in, and another, and another. The Eastlanders shift and cast wary glances between themselves.
After too many torturous, silent minutes, Hel’s scream rings through the ravine, echoing like a death knell. I want to drop to my knees, but I’m held fast, trying to breathe as she wails.
I will kill him and cut out his heart. I will hang his scalp and all its red braids from my belt.
I will curse his name so wholly that his every waking moment will become a prayer that he is not found by the likes of me.
The Prince of the East and his army will regret that the silent Witch Walker from Silver Hollow lived.